Summon a cat familiar

I started this spell last night. I believe it will work, but I would like to know if anyone else has tried it, and if it worked for them? Also, if it does work, do I have to feed him since he's a spirit?

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I'm not sure where the idea that a pet is the same as a familiar came from. I guess I have to blame it on some of the crop of poorly researched books on the market these days. But the fact of the matter is that our beloved pets and a Witch's familiar are very, very different things.

A Witch's familiar is an animal spirit or a magical construct created by the Witch or the Magician as an adjunct to their magical workings, as a repository for power, and if needed as a defense against magical attack from another magic user. A Witch or a magician can draw upon the energies of the familiar when they need an extra boost of energy in a magical working. Conceivably if the spell is important enough, the Witch could completely drain the familiar of energy causing it to "die" or cease to exist. And in the case of a magical attack, the attack could be diverted to the familiar so that it would be the familiar which is destroyed rather than the magic user. None of these are things that I think any of us would want to do with our pets.

There is an excellent article on familars here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familiar_spirit

Animals are very sensitive to the energies around them and they may be drawn to us when we are working magic because they can sense the energy. They also want to be around their people, which again will make them want to be where we are..and that may be where we are doing magic. Neither of these things makes the animal a familiar or inherently magical in and of itself.

If you do create a familiar then in order to maintain the relationship between yourself and your construct you do have to feed them with a certain amount of energy or they will fade away and disappear.

So, in other words it won't work?

No, that is exactly the opposite of what was stated. Though it isn't a physical pet, but rather a spirit animal that one uses in times of need that you must feed energy in order to keep it from fading away.

You don't really summon a familiar, you create one. It's rather along the same lines as a servitor.

On the other hand, you can sort of summon a spirit animal, which is different from a familiar. A spirit animal is a spiritual entity in the form of an animal that comes to teach you specific lessons you need to learn. Spirit animals don't need so much in the way of feeding, but you do need to keep in touch with them to maintain the bonds between you.

Thank you Lark I believe I misunderstood the difference and should have worded my post better.

how do you feed it energy???